I've got a relatively strong stomach...maybe I'm also a bit desensitized toward certain things...my work and work environment not being the nicest things/places in the world. Very little bothers me....
However...I tend to get a bit upset when I visit the restroom and there's cockroaches scaling the wall, or I'm stretched out in the lounge chair staring at the ceiling while the technician doesn't apply proper pressure and my 100 dollar a pint blood goes all over the place.....but to patiently wait for them to get the blood stopped, clean the arm and the blood, fresh bandages etc....and have house flies crawling around in the hot blood (and it is hot) and then to think that other folks have bled and those same flies were probably in their contaminated blood did have a tendency to cause some remarks from my person towards the head nurse at the facility......
But did you know that the common housfly cannot sit on a table, flap it's wings and fly off......no it cannot, it starts by flapping the wings like crazy...and not moving...it then drops it's body low on it's legs like the pneumatically operated struts on the nose gear of an aircraft, then like firing a shot shell in an ejection seat, the fly uses the compressed power of it's legs to jump into the air, then goes nose down like a helicopter, proceeding with some forward motion, and staying in ground effect to gain airspeed then zooms off.
Similarly...when it lands on the ceiling, the overhead, it flies up in close proximity to the landing area, goes a bit nose down, then a half roll snd jams the gear down hard, securing itself with the sticky adhesive on it's feet/legs. To take off, it releases the front legs first to get a nose down attitude, releases the rear legs, flapping it's wings and does a half roll out.
One could write a masters thesis on such things.......:p

Phillip Allen

08-24-2009, 07:31 PM

need something to amuse yourself Chuck?

Pirate-at-heart

08-24-2009, 07:44 PM

I find myself utterly entranced with this magical process and wish to subscribe to your "How Flies Fly" newsletter.

Straight UP!

Canoeyawl

08-24-2009, 09:20 PM

How do you know it's the head nurse?

Captain Blight

08-25-2009, 09:18 AM

Remember that Gawd chose to include these animals as passengers in the Ark. Along with the typhus bacterium, pseudomonas, Clostridium, Guinea worm and the tsetse.

I learned about that jump-to-takeoff fact about houseflies a few years ago. if you clap your hands together above where the fly has landed (instead of trying to smash it flat) it's easier to catch them.

SamSam

08-25-2009, 10:01 AM

I'm agnostic on this, I'd have to see it in slow motion. When I go to swat one, he's gone. There doesn't seem to be time to warm up the wings, squat down and then launch itself. It does make me wonder if flies fart though.

Someone told me that back when they were in school they would catch them, take the part behind the wings off and then insert a small piece of kleenex to restore the balance and then let them go. They would sometimes have a small fleet droning around the classroom.

Paul Pless

08-25-2009, 10:08 AM

It does make me wonder if flies fart though.jato

Domesticated_Mr. Know It All

08-25-2009, 11:33 AM

Someone told me that back when they were in school they would catch them, take the part behind the wings off and then insert a small piece of kleenex to restore the balance and then let them go. They would sometimes have a small fleet droning around the classroom.